


pillars of salt and pillars of sand

by spectrenico



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Drug Addiction, Heroin, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 15:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6860242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectrenico/pseuds/spectrenico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Derek, you can see. You saw. You know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	pillars of salt and pillars of sand

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Coldplay song lyric.

Derek poured a cup of coffee.

 

It was one of those nights. Those late nights where there was just enough information so he didn’t want to go home until he found more, but not enough information to lead him to that more. So he just stayed, frustrated, combed through the same files and the same pictures. One of those nights where he prayed they had missed some small, yet crucial detail. Something he could find if he just looked hard enough.

 

Most everyone had gone home. Hotch was still in, but he was locked away in his office. JJ was almost asleep at her desk. And--Reid.

 

Reid, who had walked into the room as Derek poured his coffee.

 

Reid hadn’t looked well for a few days, no doubt due to the case they were working. The crime scene was the dwelling of a heroin addict. Not the same kind of heroin Reid had been addicted to but at a certain point all heroin was probably more or less the same. It was, at least, to Reid. He didn’t think the others had noticed (or if they did, they were kind enough not to show it) that look on Reid’s face when he’d held up the syringe. The way his eyes widened. Derek had said his name, once, quietly, and Reid dropped it as if it’d burned him. He straightened and spoke some statistics like he did whenever he was trying to compartmentalize, but Derek could see. Derek could see how the addiction had glinted through his gaze. The pure ache that shone in Reid’s eyes.

 

Derek knew a trigger when he saw one. His counseling had taught him that much.

 

Reid didn’t say anything as he entered the room. His hands were dug in his pockets and his stringy brown hair hung limply over his eyes--it did this when he hadn’t washed it in a few days. He stepped back, like he was about to leave the room, then forward. As if testing the floor for land mines.

 

Derek watched him with a cocked eyebrow for a moment. “You look wrecked, Kid.”

 

Reid wouldn’t raise his eyes to Derek’s. “Yeah, two all nighters in a row doesn’t exactly soften your features either.” But despite the truth in that statement, Derek could have been a Calvin Klein model in comparison to how Reid looked at the moment.

 

They stood there. Finally, Derek said, “Do you want some coffee?”

 

“I want heroin,” Reid replied, in the same tone of voice anyone else would say, I would love some coffee, thank you.

 

Derek didn’t really know how to respond to that. There were times when Reid managed to throw even him for a loop. But he adapted quickly. “Yeah, so, I’ll just go ahead and make you a cup.”

 

Reid awkwardly folded his hands together, then put them at his sides. He didn’t seem to know what to do with them. “Don’t handle me, please.”

 

“I really don’t know what you want me to say, Reid,” he admitted, finally.

 

Reid didn’t know what he wanted either, it seemed. He stepped forward again, close enough to lean on the counter next to Derek. “Everything I read said that, it wouldn’t get easier. A lot of people get decades into sobriety, and still relapse.”

 

“You’ve never been much like most people,” Derek pointed out, but Reid exhaled impatiently so that must have been the wrong thing to say. “Just black?”

 

Reid ignored him. “The way you said my name back there.”

 

Derek hadn’t said Kid, or even Reid. He’d said,  _ Spencer _ . “What?”

 

“My first name,” Reid said, almost accusingly. 

 

Derek threw his hands up in the air. “You call me my first name all the time.”

 

Reid didn't rattle off statistics or a quote or anything else he'd memorized. Instead his expression read barely concealed misery. Derek had seen him like this only a few times before. When the crime scene was especially gruesome, even for their line of work. When Derek told him and JJ about Buford. She’d looked away but Reid kept eye contact, speechless yet bleeding emotion.

 

Derek poured a few packets of sugar into the hot styrofoam cup and hoped that would take the edge off the bitterness. He held it out to Reid.

 

Reid took it, but reluctantly. “Derek, you can see. You saw. You know.”

 

Derek did see, how Reid looked at that needle. How he'd missed it more than anything.

 

“Maybe you should talk to Hotch,” Derek said. “He'll understand if the case is--” but Reid was already shaking his head.

 

“Don't you see, it's not about the case.” A splatter. The coffee spilled over the edge of the cup and onto the floor. Derek wondered if he'd filled it too high, but then he realized Reid was shaking like a leaf. “All I can remember is when Tobias first injected me. I knew, intellectually, what a high was like, but I'd never felt anything like that. What if I'm--” his voice dropped, to a whisper, “--not strong enough?”

 

Derek slowly took the coffee cup from Reid's hands and brought it up to the man's chapped lips. “You're not thinking straight, man. Drink.” When Reid protested-- “Spence. Drink.”

 

Reid did. Derek watched his adam's apple bob in his throat as the warm drink spilled past his lips. When the cup felt almost half empty, he moved it and sat it gingerly on the counter.

 

He put both his hands on Reid's shoulders, firmly, but not unkindly. He squeezed. “Where are we?”

 

Reid blinked at him. Once, twice. “What?” he said.

 

Derek didn't break eye contact. “Where are we?” he repeated, slowly.

 

Something sparked in Reid's eyes then. Annoyance. “Derek--” Derek shook his head once, and somehow it silenced him. Reid took in a deep breath. “Quantico, Virginia?”

 

“What year is it?”

 

“I really don't see what this has to do with--”

 

Derek took a step closer. “What's your name?”

 

Reid looked up at him. “Spencer Reid.”

 

“What do you do?”

 

“I'm an FBI behavioral analyst.”

 

“Wrong.” Reid's eyes narrowed in confusion at that, clearly the genius boy wasn't used to being told he was wrong. “You save lives. That's what you do, every day. You're a pillar of strength, Reid, to everyone. To me.”

 

Reid was still, so now only his voice shook. “I don't want to let the whole team down. What if it just over comes me, what if one day you find me stealing morphine from a vic’s medicine cabinet. My career, my whole life. Gone.” His voice was so small, reminded Derek how young he was compared to the rest of them. “I don't want to let you down, Derek.”

 

Derek stiffened only a little when Reid hugged him. Not because he was that uncomfortable, or particularly surprised. But he wasn't sure what he could do. How he could help Reid, or give what he needed.

 

Derek exhaled when Reid drew back. “Sorry,” Reid said. “I can accept being an addict, to a certain extent, but being weak. I hate it.”

 

“Don't apologize. What we do--it's hard. What I said before.” Derek grabbed Reid's arm. “I meant it. You are a pillar of strength. But I shouldn't have said it like that. You don't have to be strong all the time, all by yourself. We’re here for you to lean on, too.” Reid’s eyes widened as Derek slid up his sleeves, to the track marks he knew were there.

 

“Derek,” he said, alarm in his voice, but made no move to stop the other man.

 

“These,” Derek said. He rubbed the needle marks and skids with his thumb, darkened grey-brown against the contrast of Reid's pale skin, and Reid's mouth fell open a little. Derek saw them before, but not up close. Not like this. “Don't make you weak. You didn't ask for what that son of a bitch did, but you still have to live with it. And you. You survive.”

 

“Tobias, he. He didn’t mean…” Reid's sympathy for his attacker, kidnapper, made Derek's stomach twist. But Reid never completed his sentence. He just looked at Derek. “Are we talking about me, still?”

 

Derek realized they weren't. “Yes. But...you and me, we're alike, I guess.”

 

Reid smiled a little, at that. The first smile Derek had seen from him in weeks, maybe months. Derek let go of his arm, and Reid rolled the sleeve back down before letting it drop to his side.

 

“Thanks for the coffee,” Reid said, easily. Derek laughed.

 

“Any time. Don't forget about what I said. We're here for you, Spencer. I'm here.”

 

Reid moved for the coffee, but abandoned it mid reach and instead wrapped his arms around Derek's shoulders in another awkward Reid-like embrace. Derek started to rub circles into his back with a flat palm, but Reid drew back quicker this time.

 

“I know,” he said, warmly, and left the room. Surely to retreat back to his desk.

 

Derek lifted Reid's cup to his lips, and drank. Maybe he'd head home, for a shower, something to eat…

 

Then, he thought to Reid's wild eyes and stringy hair. Maybe...he'd go over the case a few more times. 

  
Stay here for a while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I love these two and more than anything I needed a trauma bonding moment. I wanted this to focus more on Derek's issues but it just took a mind of its own. Until next time!


End file.
